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Corn-beef Hash

A hash of finely chopped corn-beef and potato cooked with butter, pepper, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 938 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn-beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the beef and potato finely.

Cook

  1. Combine the beef, potato, and a little hot water in a pan.

  2. Add the butter and pepper.

  3. Heat thoroughly over medium heat.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cooked corn beef
Provides the main savory meat flavor and chewy texture in the hash.
Potato
Adds starch and body, so the hash holds together and turns soft when heated.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the mixture brown lightly in the pan.

The step that matters

Heat thoroughly over medium heat. The potato must be cooked through and the mixture evenly hot. Medium heat gives the potato time to soften without scorching the butter and the meat on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, beef, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Carrotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, beef, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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